Primary Submission Category: Non-health institutions (business, political, education systems)
Criminal Legal Supervision and Infant Health
Authors: AP Pittman, Isabella Bouklas, Daichi Hibi, Michael Cao, David Rigby, Tim Bruckner, Joan Casey, Allison Stolte, Hedwig Lee,
Presenting Author: AP Pittman*
Black-white disparities in infant health remain stark in the United States. Black-white disparities in state-level incarceration rates correlate with the racial inequity in infant health. However, less is known about whether other aspects of the criminal legal system, such as parole and probation, affect racial disparities in these outcomes. Here we examine the association between state-level rates of imprisonment, parole supervision, and probation supervision on Black-white differences in infant mortality – both total rates and race-specific rates. We use two-way fixed effects models with state and year fixed effects to estimate the impact of these state-level characteristics on Black, white, and Black-white differences in infant mortality rates. Our results show positive associations between total imprisonment rates and Black infant mortality and Black-white inequality in infant mortality. Controlling for race-specific imprisonment rates, race-specific rates of parole and probation are associated with decreases in the infant mortality rate for Black infants, but not for white infants. Race-specific probation and imprisonment rates have a significant interactive effect on white infant mortality, where increased levels of both lead to higher rates of white infant mortality. This research has implications for how we think about parole and probation as opposed to imprisonment on a societal level.